Birth of a Nation (1983) watch online HD

One of a series of films made for television, scripted by David Leland in the early 1980s - all of them absolutely classic. The most well known of the films is Made in Britain starring Tim Roth as a glue-sniffing, car-thieving skinhead going completely off his head. Another, Flying into the Wind, was until recently an English Literature examination text - about a family who take their son out of mainstream education, and the legal battle that ensues. Unlike Made in Britain, Birth of a Nation is not available on video, as far as I know. Which is a shame because I remember it as being equally powerful, and broader in scope. Jim Broadbent (Oscar winner in 2002) plays Mr. Figg, an embattled teacher in a secondary school the institutional credibility of which is rapidly falling apart. A great scene shows him teaching sex education, writing the words "W***ing" and "Masturbation" on the blackboard in huge letters and then leading a class discussion on the subject. While Mr. Figg just about makes it through the day, others are less able to take the strain. The school is besieged by ex-pupils who make periodic vandalistic raids on the buildings. Towards the end a bottle of acid is thrown from the school roof, smashing on the Chemistry teacher's head.

This was great "State of the Nation" television. Unfortunately, tv producers no longer have the guts or the inclination to sponsor this kind of provocative drama. And Mike Newell has somehow turned into the director of Four Weddings And a Funeral! Sigh . . .

This shows what comprehensive schools were really like in the 80s. Forget the unrealistic Grange Hill with the goodlooking cast of rough but good hearted working class kids, Birth of a nation shows the disturbing truth. Class after class of ugly, aggressive teenagers. Thick, hateful savages with speech impediments. It felt like I was watching a documentary.

Birth of a nation was clearly made as a piece of political properganda that focuses on how corporal punishment doesn't work. And how qualifications in comprehensive schools are worthless because there are no jobs for unemployable thickos who spend their days smoking behind the bikeshed and extorting money from younger children.

Thank God for smartphones and zero hour contracts, because apparently bored school leavers who couldn't get jobs in those days would hang around outside the school gates to be antisocial. What saddos. Wouldn't they be happier at home in front of the TV?

Jim Broadbent (aka Roy Slater in OFAH) was believable as a teacher because he was so ugly. But I found some of the messages in this film bizarre. Like how one of the teachers pulled his pants down on school grounds while looking at a poster of a naked women and then proceeded to wear a thong. Were they insinuating he's gay and getting off on spanking the boys?

Despite how miserable and bleak it was, I actually enjoyed watching it because I felt like I was watching something real, not the fake, sugar-coated, rubbish that tries to cover up reality.